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Debora Galeano
Debora Galeano

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How to handle multiple inputs in React

I recently had to refactor a React Form when working with multiple inputs and I thought I'd share how I did it.

This is how my form looks like:

Screen Shot 2020-11-28 at 10.38.42 PM

The Problem

  • Look at the starter code below
  • This Form component has 5 input fields in total; 5 different states and 5 different onChange inline functions
  • This is not exactly DRY code 🙀


import React, { useState } from "react";

export default function Form() {
  const [newCompany, setCompany] = useState("");
  const [newPosition, setPosition] = useState("");
  const [newLink, setNewLink] = useState("");
  const [newDate, setNewDate] = useState("");
  const [newNote, setNewNote] = useState("");

  return (
        <form>
          <input
            value={newCompany}
            onChange={(e) => setCompany(e.target.value)}
            label="Company"
          />
          <input
            value={newPosition}
            onChange={(e) => setPosition(e.target.value)}
            label="Job Title"
          />
          <input
            value={newLink}
            onChange={(e) => setNewLink(e.target.value)}
            label="Job Link"
          />
          <input
            type="date"
            value={newDate}
            onChange={(e) => setNewDate(e.target.value)}
          />
          <input
            value={newNote}
            onChange={(e) => setNewNote(e.target.value)}
            label="Note"
          />
          <button type="submit"> Submit </button>
        </form>
  );
}


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  • Also, if I want to add a reset function later, my code will look like this: 🙅🏽‍♀️


  const reset = () => {
    setCompany("");
    setPosition("");
    setNewLink("");
    setNewDate("");
    setNewNote("");
  };


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The Solution: Refactoring ✨

Step 1: Add input default values and initialize state

  • First, let's add default values to ALL input fields
  • How do we do that? We create an object literal with those values and set to empty string
  • Then, with the useState() React Hook we initialize our values state with the initialValues object
  • Important: Remember to add the value attribute to every input field with its corresponding value (e.g. values={values.company})


const initialValues = {
  company: "",
  position: "",
  link: "",
  date: "",
  note: "",
};

export default function Form() {
  const [values, setValues] = useState(initialValues);

  return (
        <form>
          <input
            value={values.company}
            onChange={(e) => setCompany(e.target.value)}
            label="Company"
          />
 //...


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Step 2: Handle multiple input change

  • The goal here is to handle ALL inputs with a single onChange handler
  • In order to update and keep track of our input fields every time they change, we need to create a handleInputChange function (see below)
  • What's happening here? (quick recap)
    • First, we're using object destructuring to get or extract the name and the value attributes from our inputs (look at the the comments below - they're equivalent)
    • Then, we're updating our values state object with the existing values by using the setValues() function and the spread operator
    • And finally, we're updating the value of the event that was triggered by that onChange with this ES6 syntax: [name]: value
    • This is a very important step! We need to add a name attribute to our inputs and [name]: value here means that we're setting a dynamic name property key (taken from our inputs - e.g. company: e.target.value) which will be equal to the value of our current input state.

Reference: React Docs



 //... 

  const handleInputChange = (e) => {
    //const name = e.target.name 
    //const value = e.target.value 
    const { name, value } = e.target;

    setValues({
      ...values,
      [name]: value,
    });
  };

  return (
        <form>
          <input
            value={values.company}
            onChange={handleInputChange}
            name="company" //IMPORTANT 
            label="Company"
          />
   // ... 


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Step 3: Add handleInputChange to input fields

  • Add the handleInputChange function to the onChange prop of every input field
  • Look at the final code; this is a much cleaner and manageable form 👌🏽


import React, { useState } from "react";

const initialValues = {
  company: "",
  position: "",
  link: "",
  date: "",
  note: "",
};

export default function Form() {
  const [values, setValues] = useState(initialValues);

  const handleInputChange = (e) => {
    const { name, value } = e.target;
    setValues({
      ...values,
      [name]: value,
    });
  };

  return (
        <form>
          <input
            value={values.company}
            onChange={handleInputChange}
            name="company"
            label="Company"
          />
          <input
            value={values.position}
            onChange={handleInputChange}
            name="position"
            label="Job Title"
          />
           // ... Rest of the input fields
          <button type="submit"> Submit </button>
        </form>
  );
}


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I hope it was useful. All comments and feedback are welcome! 🎊

Top comments (23)

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musawershah1598 profile image
Musawer Shah

Hi this method works fine for multiple input but just with normal input fields. What if their are some booleans and arrays??? E.g In vue.js I have the following data model which change at some point in time, which in that case two way data binding make it way easier for us.

data() {
        return {
            valid: false,
            showDialog: true,
            showFullLoading: false,
            isImage: false,
            product: {
                name_en: "",
                name_ar: "",
                category: "",
                subcategory: "",
                description_en: "",
                description_ar: "",
                meta_title: "",
                meta_description: "",
                meta_keywords: "",
                price: 0.0,
                showSale: false,
                sale: 0.0,
                image: "",
                saleAfterStock: false,
                stock: 10
            },
            images: [
                { image: null, isImage: false, id: shortid.generate() },
                { image: null, isImage: false, id: shortid.generate() },
                { image: null, isImage: false, id: shortid.generate() },
                { image: null, isImage: false, id: shortid.generate() }
            ],
            attributes: [],
            defaultVariants: [],
            dataWeightClass: ["Gram", "Kilo Gram", "Pound"],
            dataDimensionClass: ["Centimeter", "Inch"],
            showAttributeDialog: false,
            sizeGuide: false,
            sizeGuides: [],
            attribute: {
                title_en: "",
                title_ar: "",
                description_en: "",
                description_ar: "",
                image: null,
                isImage: false
            },
            subcategories: [],
            options: [],
            variantsHeaders: [
                { text: "Variant", value: "name" },
                { text: "Price", value: "price" },
                { text: "Stock", value: "quantity" },
                { text: "Visibility", value: "visibility" }
            ],
            defaultVariantId: "",
            defaultPreviewId: ""
        };
    },
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jgifford82 profile image
jgifford82

Thank you so much!! I'm learning about controlled forms, and this has been incredibly helpful!

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donchocska profile image
donchocska

Amazing perofrmance. Very thanks!

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sparshcodes profile image
Sparsh Gupta

Hi, just wanted to ask ,
since we are changing the state in handleInputChange
therefore, every time we will type in something the whole component will re-render since the state is changing
so isn't it an expensive approach in respect to performance?

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tombohub profile image
tombohub • Edited

very good , but I don't like it. Now you have to maintain the names of the inputs, which is a string. It's a bug waiting to happen.

I suggest using this solution: stackoverflow.com/a/47707719/1079002

btw, do you have solution for nested objects? I need that, thanks!

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yahaya_hk profile image
Yahaya Kehinde

Amazing Deborah ! ☺️☺️

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knightwarrior93 profile image
SHAMIM

Thanks for providing with an useful information in a synchronize manner ...

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majidmo49787329 profile image
Majid Mohamed

Amazing perofrmance. Very thanks!

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svadr profile image
Salvador Beltrán

Thank you so much, I was handling this terrible, but with your handleChange I was able to refactor the entire event! fav*

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abned08 profile image
Aboubakr Ned

Wow, that exactly what I was looking for

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juliojeanfils1 profile image
Julio Jean Fils

Thank you